samadhisoft.com

Sorry, Buddy, if I seem like I’ve been ignoring you.   The two-month trip to the U.S. was a major drop out for me with respect to keeping up with E-Mails.

I’ve just gone back and looked through the several E-Mails you’ve sent me over that time.   Drilling ANWAR, the Keystone Shale Oil Pipeline, the rising medical costs for G20 nations, some ragging on Obama and the collection of 50 amazing and concerning statistics to do with the U.S.  I also noted that you liked the fellow in New Mexico who is building energy sustainable homes.

It’s all interesting and debatable.   Most of it, however, I don’t think worth debating at the level presented.   Don’t misunderstand me, my friend.   That is not intended to be a rebuff to you nor is it me ragging on you.

I have several large-scale reactions to things like these issues now days.

First, I sincerely doubt that anything significant can be done about them.  And that leads me to question how much of the valuable life-time I have left I want to spend agonizing over them.

Debating them seems largely futile to me.  You and I are both intelligent, sincere and well-meaning with regard to these issues but we have not, over many years of discussing these issues, been able to agree on the causes and solutions to many of them.

If that’s true, then how likely is it that either of us could engage in debates with others and hope to sway many of them to our POV?

Most times, we (the royal ‘we’) end up talking to the already-converted who believe as we do.   That seems a particular waste of time to me.

I tend strongly to be a systems thinker and before I dig into the detail of a given issue, like say the Keystone Pipeline, I will back off and see if the issue makes more sense to regard from a higher meta level.   I think, as a systems thinker would, that this is very obviously the most penetrating and productive approach.  But I also find it very much a minority POV and thus valid and yet largely irrelevant at the same time.

The more I study the foibles of human thinking, the more I realize that we are very imperfect beings with regard to our abilities to seek truth without being swayed by our previously ensconced viewpoints.  I.e., we very largely see what we want to see and that most of us, when learning this, assume that it is a great truth that afflicts virtually everyone else – ourselves being excluded, of course.   I’m in this boat as well, I suspect.

We listen at the radio telescopes to a galaxy with 100 billion stars in which the latest research tells us that virtually every sun has planets.   Against this news, the Drake Equation has been begging the question for decades now as to why we haven’t heard from other civilizations out there.

I greatly fear that the very drives and imperatives that pool and collect when inanimate matter arises via evolution, complexity and the second law of thermodynamics into beings with intelligence and self awareness, that these self-same drives and imperatives are the factors that cause them to destroy themselves every time on the cusp of their technological adolescence.

http://samadhimuse.com/2008/06/21/2008-06-21-under-many-stars/

All the greed and waste we see around us is nothing but, to me, the higher level expressions of those same biological imperatives that served all of world’s evolving creatures so well until one of them, us; Homo Sapiens, arose with such a powerful adaption (generalized intelligence) that it broke the balances of forces that had always held things in rough balance and let us dominate the biosphere unopposed.

Now, still living out those imperatives to go forth and propagate, we’ve filled the planet up and are threatening to bring the biosphere to wreck and ruin.

I don’t think humanity, as a collective, have the insight, intelligence or will to transcend this deeply inbred tendency.   And I doubt that the vast majority of species on planets of distant stars have had these in sufficient quantities either, or we’d probably have heard from them by now.

So, on a very personal level, I’m just thinking mostly these days about how I want to spend the rest of my time in a reasonably responsible way and enjoy the life I have left to me.  Sidewalk cafes, good books, ancient ruins and the sun on my shoulders all sounds good.

Cheers, my friend,

Dennis

In line with posting some things that are personal along with the Perfect Storm stuff, I’d like to share with you that I’ve resigned from my job at SLI-Systems as a C++ Software Engineer with effect Friday, January 20th.

It was an amicable separation.  I’ve been wanting to break free and do some of my own software development for some time and, after we returned from our two-month sojourn to the U.S., and I tried to get back into the groove there for a week or so, it seemed like it was time to go.

I completed two large projects for SLI in the time I was there (22 months).  I integrated the Basis Technology Libraries into their main C++ program, Moby, code so that they can process a variety of foreign languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Greek, Polish and German to date) as well as the English processing they were already doing.   And, I converted Moby from 32 to 64 bits.

Leaving a good job for the unknown can make one insecure and I’ve not been immune to that fact.

But I prefer this slightly scared and disoriented feeling I have now to the nagging suspicion that I might have been staying on someplace because I’m letting my fears and insecurities limit my choices.

Stayed tuned, I’ll report if I have a melt-down or if I release a new software product – either way, it should be interesting.

Oh, and I should mention that it’s summer here and I plan to use some of this new free time to ride my motorcycle off to a few locations around New Zealand which is, I think, one of the better ways to use this nice weather.

Cheers.

We got in about midnight on Saturday from a trip that began in Los Angeles, jumped to San Francisco, then to Sydney and finally ended in Christchurch, New Zealand after what seemed like days of traveling.  Indeed, it’s hard to work out just how long you have been traveling when there are International Date Lines and so many time zone changes in play.

Sunday, we got up and spent much of the day unpacking until about 3 PM when I suggested that we go out for a ride in the nice summer weather.

I came back from that ride fairly depressed.   Partly because I’m at the end of a long and idyllic vacation and seeing all my American friends and family.   But, in a large measure too because of Christchurch.

Your author - 2011

My beautiful city on the Southern Island of New Zealand is still a deeply wounded entity.  As we drove around, the city center is still predominately an upsetting scene of destruction and demolition.   Wounds that will likely take five years, and more likely 10, to begin to get sorted out so that it regains some of what made it so very special.

So, I was back and feeling sad and twisted by all of this.   Part of me wants to pull up stakes and move on to a place not so wounded.  And another very considerable part of me knows that Colette would probably not opt to leave this city that’s been her home for 30 years.   It’s one of those quandaries you just have to look at and live with until it resolves one way or the other.   But, it left me unsettled and when we returned to the house, I had a good long lie down on the couch and just let the feelings wash over me.

I’m never one to be down long, though.   Monday morning, I was up and away to work to see what lay in store for me there.   All of that is yet another quandary for me.

They treat me very well and the job’s provided me with a good income these last 18 months or so.   But, maintaining old and cranky software that’s been agglutinating for years has never been a favorite of mine.   So, do I go or do I stay?   Security and a regular paycheck sit on one hand.  And, the on the other hand, sit freedom to write my own software and take a shot at entrepreneurship with all the economic and emotional risks that go with that.   And in the back of my mind, a small voice that says, “If not now, when?”

Not knowing yet what I really want, I went into work Monday thinking, “I’ll wait and see what new thing they offer me to do.   If it’s something I’d really find interesting to do, then I’ll take  serious look.   But if it’s more spaghetti wrestling and digging through messes that should never have been coded that way, then I’m going to take a flyer.”   That was Monday and today’s Wednesday and I’m still thinking about it all.   ‘Waiting is’.

In Stranger in a Strange Land, Heinlein introduces this concept: “Waiting is”.  (http://jassnight.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/waiting-is/)

To me, it means patiently waiting, with no time frame in mind, until the decision simply makes itself because all the necessary parts needed to make the decision, have arrived.  And, when they are there, the decision virtually makes itself.  Even though we think we are the agent of decision, we are in fact, simply the vessel within which the decision assembles and makes itself.

Little is to be gained by forcing decisions.

A good friend of mine, who said she much enjoyed the personal side of what I’ve been writing these last two months, suggested, that as I go forward and resume with my normal fare, that I might leaven it with more of the personal and not such a steady diet of renditions of all that is so badly broken in our world.

After thinking about what she said, I agree and I am going to try to do more of that.

In truth, I deeply value being able to look squarely at the world and the mess that it’s in.   But, being such a ‘looker’ is not all that I am.   I’m a poet, a lover, a good friend to many people, a father and a grandfather and someone who, in spite of several scars and setbacks, deeply likes myself and my life and I think that I am one of the luckiest and most blessed people I know.   And, each morning, when I get up, I feel deep thankfulness that I am still here with my heart, my mind and my body mostly intact.   And thus, I rise to love the day intensely.

Somehow, I can keep the doom and gloom of the “Perfect Storm” hypothesis, which I believe now is more on the money that ever, separate from my joy and my love of life and love for those around me.

Perhaps, what Katy was telling me, is to share more of both sides of that.   And she’s right and I will.   I hope it pleases you, dear readers.

dennis

Last morning at Dan’s.   Up by 7 AM to make sure we could see the kids before they’re off on their school day activities.

A leisurely breakfast, some hanging out with Dan and Ann talking about stuff, a last load of clothes washed and then we’re off for a slow drive up the coast to LAX.

Ann’s working in Laguna Beach at her shop there and she’s at work by the time we’ve meandered that far up the coast so we stop in to see her and the shop.   It’s a small, pretty and well organized place with a lot of top-end beauty products on sale.   It’s a wealthy area so I’m sure she does well there.  I imagine she has a steady and loyal customer base because, like Dan, she’s very personable so she’s bound to be a natural at all of this.

We drive on and in Corona del Mar, we stop at a coffee/bagel shop on Pacific Coast Highway with outside seating and indulge ourselves.   It’s 80F/27C outside on the 4 of January, a winter day, here in Southern California so sitting out is very pleasant; perhaps even a bit warm in the sun.   We have Lox and Bagels – yum.

Continuing north, we’re watching for a do-it-your-self carwash; the kind with bays and a power wand and that you put quarters in to buy some washing time.   We find one as we’re entering Long Beach near my Alma Mater, CSULB.  We wash and vacuum out the car, which was really dirty after out 7000 mile / 11,200km journey.   

Then we’re into a Starbucks where we examine the various hotel options near LAX.   Tonight, we’re going to stay in a real hotel with some class and pamper ourselves on our last night in the USA.   We settle on the Sheraton Four Points on Airport Blvd very near to both Budget rent-a-car and LAX.   $99 per night and $19 for car parking.

It seems like it’s just a few minutes on the freeway and we’re getting off the 405 onto Century Blvd at LAX and checking in.   Nice room, nice place.

I call my friend, Charles, who lives and works not far from here in Culver City to see if he’s free this evening for a meal.   He is!

It should be fun to spend an evening with him.   Colette and I met him for a meal back on November 8th when we arrived here at LAX.  So, he will have seen Colette when America was new to her and now when she’s spent two months looking at the place.

Charles arrives at 7 pm and takes us out to downtown Culver City where we eat at a small Italian place which has most excellent Spaghetti Carbonara (my favorite!).   

After the meal, we walk the neighborhood.   Sony Pictures are headquartered here.   The area is in growth mode and looks very healthy.  Charles tells us that it’s becoming a ‘go to’ destination for folks in the area looking for an evening out.   Looks right to me.

Then he drives us up to downtown Los Angeles where we have a look around.   He shows us the incredible Disney Building which is very impressive. The streets around are virtually empty at night which Colette comments on.   Charles says it’s been like that for many years.   It’s almost all business and no residential so once the business day ends, it’s an empty and dangerous place.   He says it is slowly changing back but it looks to me like it still has a ways to go.

As we drive, Charles and I engage in one of the political discussions which he and I have been pursuing avidly since our days in university together.   

I wish I had the time and space to write about all the things we discussed.   I find them deeply interesting and I believe these subjects are near the core of what should concern us all with the mess the political and natural worlds are in today.   But, such discussions need a dedicated space of their own and perhaps I will wade into them on their own right on this Blog in the future.

Back to the hotel and Colette surprises me deeply by grabbing my arm and pulling me to the bar.    She has a glass of champagne and I have a glass of the house white wine.   A wrap-up celebration as we’re ending our two-month journey together in the U.S.  She’s a sweetie.

This will be my last entry on the subject of our two-month journey in the U.S.   After I’ve settled back into Christchurch for a few days, I’ll resume the normal content of this Blog which concerns more serious fare.

Dear readers, it has been a deep pleasure sharing all of this with you and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it.

Love to all from near LAX.

dennis

We got up this morning to a bustling household.  Dan was off to work, Cody to school and Ann and Eden were going to take Eden to the doctor for her cough.

Colette and I walked a mile or so to a Seattle’s Best coffee shop and had coffee and enjoyed the California sunlight.   After coffee, I got the notion that I wanted to read a copy of The Orange County Register newspaper.   Years ago, when I lived in Orange County for an extended period, I’d read this paper frequently.

We went into the major supermarket (Ralph’s) in the Walnut and Culver strip mall where we were and asked.  “Nope, when the market was refurbished last year, they removed all the newspaper kiosks.”   This person doubted if a copy could be found anywhere in the strip mall.   In spite of that, we took a walk all around and eventually found a group of newspaper kiosk boxes and I bought a paper for $.75.

This reminded me of the discussion I’d had last night with Dan when I asked him where I might find a music store in the area where I could buy a CD for a friend in New Zealand.   He said that video and music stores had mostly disappeared since so much is available digitally on-line.   I’ve been hearing the story of the demise of physical newspapers for some time as well.

The newspaper I got and read was unlike what I remembered from previous years.   A smaller format, more fluff in the articles.  Entire pages of nothing but ads.  No help wanted.   Interesting changes are upon us.

After a brief return home to Dan’s, we were off again for a last wandering romp.   Looked in at The Tustin Legacy Mall’s Barnes & Noble as they usually have Music sections.   What a huge mall.   I mean you seriously need a car to get from one section of the mall to the other.   But it was a wasted visit in the end.   The Barnes & Noble here didn’t have a music section.   They did say, however, that the Barnes & Noble at Irvine Spectrum had a music section.

From here, we went down to the Mall at Mission Viejo for a look around.  I’d hoped they might have a Barnes & Noble but, apparently, no one there reads books.   So, after a walk through the mall, we went back down to Irvine Spectrum.

At the Spectrum, we found the B & N and got Tony’s CD and then found a place that makes crepes where we could sit outside.  Then we walked down to a fountain where the water squirts up at irregular intervals and sat for a bit reading and people watching.   Really a nice place to just hang out.

We came back to Dan and Ann’s and stayed for a bit and then went out to find s Sushi for supper and some beer to contribute to the general festivities.   When we got back, Lare-dog had arrived and then we all sat around and visited for many hours.   Lots of laughter, memories and fun then.   Family and good friends are a sweet thing indeed.

Coming down to the wire now for departure.   Tomorrow, we’re going to pack up and head for the LAX area where we’re going to check into a nice hotel where we can do our final reorganization and pack up.

dennis

We awoke at Dan and Ann’s place today.   Dan took Cody and Eden off to Ann’s parents who were good enough to watch them today while Ann worked and Dan, Colette and I played.  

We met Lare-dog, a long term friend of both Dan and I, at the Mugs-Away Pub down in Mission Viejo where Ann was working and the four of us took of for an adventure in the Santa Ana Mountains.  As an aside, Lare-dog was down to visit us in New Zealand for 10 days this last September.

The mission was to go up a trail used and maintained by Dan and Lare-dog and their mountain biking friends and to un-decorate a live Christmas Dan and Lare-dog had planted on a remote trail some years ago.   They decorate and undecorate it each year for their mountain biking community and any one else who uses the trail.

First, we drove some miles up Highway 74 into the mountains, then we turned off onto a single lane paved road that then turned into a very rough dirt road.   After five miles or so of that, we came to the end and parked and then hiked another two miles or so to the tree itself.

Along the hike to the tree, Dan took us off trail to a clearing he’d located in a remote side area from Google Earth.   In distance, it wasn’t far from existing trails (maybe a quarter mile) but it was a very isolated and surely unvisited clearing.  We all sat for 20 minutes or so enjoying the luxury of having such a beautiful and unknown place for our own.

Once at the tree, Colette and I sat in the shade and ate a ham sandwich we’d brought along while Dan and Lare-dog un-decorated the tree.   When I first saw the tree back in 2003 on my way to New Zealand for the very first time, it was only two to three foot tall.   Now it stands about 7.5 feet tall.

Then we hiked back down and, while Colette and I sat in the shade by the truck (I read aloud to her from “The Last of the Mohicans” by James Fenimore Cooper), Dan and Lare-dog went up another trail carrying tools that they were going to ‘position’ for some trail work on another day soon.

When they returned, we came down from the mountain and rolled into the lot at The Mugs-Away Pub just as the sun was setting. 

A pitcher of beer and a few games of pool ensued.  Dan and Ann both work there and he’s also very well known all around the area because of the band he’s led for 20+ years; “A Bunch ‘o Guys”.   So, it’s always fun to be out in public with him.   Tonight, I was introduced to several people and I had the distinct idea that they all wanted see what Dan’s father might look like (like, where did this wonder of a rock and roll band man and mountain biker with a beautiful wife come from ).  If I haven’t mentioned how proud I am to be his father, this might be a good time … to say it is very much so.

Lare-dog took his motorcycle back out to where he’s got his RV parked (we’ll see more of him tomorrow evening) and we then took off to pick up the Kids (Dana and Ann’s; Cody and Eden) at ‘Bubbies’ (that’s what they call their grandparents on Ann’s side – I’m ‘Grandpa Dennis’).  We visited with Sally and Bernie (Ann’s parents for a few minutes) and then we were off for a surgical supper meal strike at “Panda Express” for Chinese take-out (or Take-Away, as Kiwis say).

While we were loading up in Dan’s truck with all of our food (there was a lot), Colette got a call from her son, Jonathan, in Christchurch.   

He’d sent an instant message asking her to call him.   That’s pretty unusual and she was a bit worried at what might have happened down there.   It turned out that this most recent series of earth quakes had broken the water main to her house so there’s no water at the moment.   But, the plumbers have been called, in spite of it being a holiday there, and Jonathan seems to have the situation well in hand.  So, while that was bad news, it was still a relief in that it could have been something far more serious

Home again with a pile of Chinese food to eat.  The kids turned on a episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos and we all chuckled our way through the waving chopsticks.

Kids in the bath, Colette banging away designing a web site and me snoozing on the couch.

End of another day here; and it was a good one.

dennis

Santa Barbara to Irvine, California

We went to the same place as yesterday for coffee and breakfast.   And again, it was a good experience.  White table cloths, sunlight, good coffee and a nice bagel.

Then we had another brief walk about town and we were off on this first day of 2012 for our drive down to Irvine, California and my son, Dan’s, place.

Brilliant day.   A layer of fog lay far out on the sea and the several oil drilling platforms that lay far off the coast were visible as were the Channel Islands that rose through the distant fog banks.  On our right, were the mountains along whose tops we drove yesteday.

At the Rincon Beach area, we stopped off Highway 101 and explored the costal road and looked out at the scenery with the binoculars.  Hundreds of RV’s seemed to be parked along the highway in every size and shape.  The weather was around 75F or 24C and very nice.

It was a smooth drive with the roads wide open and we moved along at 70 mph or about 110 kph.   At Thousand Oaks, I told Colette we we entering the Los Angeles megaplex and that from here until we were deep into Orange County, it would be nothing but continuous city.   And, it was so until we began the see the open hills still awaiting development as we neared Irvine in Orange County.

Someplace after Thousand Oaks, there was an accident on the freeway and it turned into a crawl for about 20 minutes until we passed the crash site.  It wasn’t too bad and it gave us time to reflect on the many bumper stickers people put on their cars and trucks to lets others know who they are and what their beliefs are.  

Fish symbols, fish symbols that say “Darwin” in side.  Fish symbols saying “Darwin” inside eating regular fish symbols and regular fish symbols eating fish symbols with “Darwin” inside.   Yow, it’s a lot to keep track of.

Down through the Los Angeles basin all long on the 5 Freeway we zipped along as the mega-city slipped by on both sides.  Palos Verdes far off on the right reminded us that we’d left the city originally via that path passing through San Pedro and around the sea side of Palos Verde’s rise and up through the beach cities north of it; Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, etc.

Then we crossed through my home town, Long Beach, which we’d explored in some detail earlier.    Then further south until we entered Orange County.   

Orange County; a long stretch of cities, one after the other, each with stories and memories for me spread over most of my lifetime.   Watching their names go by was like listened to a form of music.

We passed Irvine and continued on since Dan and his family were, themselves,  out on a mini-vacation and not returning until later in the afternoon.

I wanted to show Colette an absolutely fabulous Mexican restaurant in Capistrano Beach named “Olamende’s”.  (www.originalolamendis.com).   It did not disappoint us.

Good food and what a huge collection of Mexican doo-dads hung from every wall and ceiling.   We simply got up and shot photos in all directions; oblivious to whether we looked like tourists or not.

After that adventure, we continued down the coast road to San Clemente and parked and walked out on the pier and then admired the sunset and watched the Amtrak Surf-rider Train go by.

After that, we went to Dan’s place and saw my beautiful family.   Hugs were passed around.   Dan, Ann, Cody and sweet little Eden.   Mmmmm.   What a nice place to settle into for a few days until our flight back to the Shaky Island.

dennis